Weekly illustration of every Pope,from Peter to Francis.

Month: February 2015

At one point in history Alexander was credited with introducing the narrative of the last supper during Mass,and with the idea of sprinkling water into the sacramental wine. This was all attributed to a book called the Liber Pontificalis,which is Latin for “Book of Popes”. This book was written sometime in the 15th century,and since these early guys have so little known about them,some later historians filled in the blanks,blanks that are sometimes later discredited by both Catholics and non-Catholics alike,like the idea of Alexander and the last supper. We do know that he converted his jailer,St.Quirinus,and Quirinus’ daughter St. Balbina. He also converted Roman Governor Hermes and the 1500 people that were also in Hermes’ household at the time. So Alexander was most assuredly Catholic salesman of the month several months running.

The first Pope that is not mentioned in the Bible(although still not being referred to as “Pope” yet),he also would have not personally known St Peter or any of the other Apostles. Being the first Bishop without the safety net of the Apostles would have been a very challenging position,and this is when most Christians started really relying on the Gospels for added guidance. Very little to anything is known about Evaristus,which is a shame,for this was still a very dangerous time to be a Christian,and on top of that,some smaller Christian groups started splintering off with different ideas about who and what Jesus was. Through this difficult time,Evaristus held everything together,and that the still very new title of Bishop of Rome continued on after his death should give him a little credit. Plus,he’s got a cool statue at St Peter’s…..so he’s got that going for him.

The first apostolic father of the Church. The last Pope that knew Peter and the apostles and the last Pope mentioned in the Bible. His letter to the church of Corinth was a great unifier for early Christians that were slipping away from the teachings of the Apostles. Banished to a stone quarry by Roman Emperor Trajan,Clement then went about converting both local pagans and his fellow prisoners to the Christian faith. He was a troublemaker;I love it. For his punishment for this,he had a boat anchor tied to his neck and he was thrown into the Black Sea. Yikes. His friends prayed to God over their grief that they may never find his body,but then the water receded enough for his body to be recovered for a proper burial. The anchor(St Clement’s cross),is his symbol,and besides being a hipster doofus tattoo of choice,it represents that in the bleakest or darkest of times,your faith in God will always anchor you to your path.

Not much is known about the 3rd Pope. Most historians can’t even agree on his name. Some sources have it as Anacletus,or Anencletus,or just plain Cletus,which in ancient greek means “One who has been called”. He may have ordained a uncertain number of priests and he may have divided up Rome into 25 different parishes,but even that may have been credited to him by historians just to give the poor guy something to do. We really don’t even know what he looked like. All I know is that with a name like Cletus,it took a lot of restraint not to model him after Jerry Reed.